Dr Will Amos
Associate Professor
Tel: 02476 573095
Email: W dot Amos at warwick dot ac dot uk
Room: FAB4.44 Faculty of Arts Building
Postal address: School of Modern Languages and Cultures, Faculty of Arts Building, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL
About
Dr Will Amos is Associate Professor in the Translation and Transcultural Studies section of SMLC. Will holds a BA (Hons) in French Studies, an MA in Modern Languages, and a PhD in Sociolinguistics, all from the University of Liverpool. Before joining the French department at Warwick in 2017 and then TTS in 2021, Will held positions at the universities of Liverpool, Lancaster, and Lorraine (France), and worked with the AHRC theme 'Translating Cultures' (2013-17).
Research
Will's research interests are in sociolinguistics, linguistic landscapes (LL), multilingualism, language, gender, and sexuality, and transculturalism in non-literary contexts. Will's current research centres on identity performance and interpretation through clothing. Following a project on representations of femininity in French slogans on t-shirts, he is currently involved in an international collaborative project exploring school uniform and gender ideologies in the UK, South Africa, and Thailand. This takes a cross-disciplinary approach (social semiotics, gender studies, behavioural psychology) to analysing how boy/girl gender binaries inform uniform design and policies, their policing by teachers, and the 'genderneering' of young people.
Elsewhere, Will has published articles on simultaneity and language mixing in French commercial advertisements, hierarchical multilingualism on bilingual French/Occitan street signs, and ethnolinguistic identity in Liverpool's chinatown. He is co-editor of The Bloomsbury Handbook of Linguistic Landscapes alongside Robert Blackwood and Stefania Tufi (Routledge, 2024), and has written book contributions on protest and dissent in the LL, developing contexts of Corsican public writing, experimental models for conducting large-scale empirical LL research, and institutional identity construction and maintenance through language. In 2021, Will co-founded the WE•ID Wearable IdeologiesLink opens in a new window interdisciplinary research network. Will is also a member of the Languages in Coventry Research GroupLink opens in a new window and the Centre for Digital EnquiryLink opens in a new window at Warwick.
Teaching and supervision
Will's teaching interests are in linguistics and sociolinguistics, multilingualism, language ideologies, language and gender, and transcultural studies. He would be keen to supervise postgraduate study in any of these areas, especially cross-disciplinary linguistic landscape studies, dealing with any language (subject to appropriate co-supervision where necessary).
Publications
Journal Articles
Amos, H.W. (2020). English in French Commercial Advertising: Simultaneity, bivalency, and language boundaries. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 24(1), 55–74.
Amos, H.W. (2017). Regional Language Vitality in the Linguistic Landscape: Hidden hierarchies on street signs in Toulouse. International Journal of Multilingualism, 14(2), 93–108.
Amos, H.W. (2016). Chinatown by Numbers: Defining an ethnic space by empirical linguistic landscape. Linguistic Landscape, 2(2): 127–56.
Amos, H.W. (2014). Global Languages in Local Spaces: Rethinking Multilingualism in the Linguistic Landscape of Toulouse. Track Changes, 5(1), 1–13.
Edited Volume
Blackwood, R., Tufi, S., Amos, W. (eds.) (2024). The Bloomsbury Handbook of Linguistic Landscapes. London: Bloomsbury.
Book Chapters
Amos, W. (2024). 'Protest and Dissent'. In R. Blackwood, S. Tufi, and W. Amos (eds.), The Bloomsbury Handbook of Linguistic Landscapes, pp. 334–51. London: Bloomsbury.
Blackwood, R., Tufi, S., Amos, W. (2024). 'Introduction'. In R. Blackwood, S. Tufi, and W. Amos (eds.), The Bloomsbury Handbook of Linguistic Landscapes, pp. 1–4. London: Bloomsbury.
Blackwood, R. & Amos, W. (2023). 'Linguistic Landscapes'. In L. Wei, Z. Hua, and J. Simpson (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Applied Linguistics (2nd Edition), pp. 337–48. New York: Routledge.
Turiano-Reea, G. (2023). ‘Flora Aurima Devatine: The written word as transmitter of Tahitian traditions’, trans. W. Amos. In E. Castro-Koshy (ed.), Maruao, Les Ailes de l'Infini: Poémes et essais bilingues de Flora Aurima Devatine et études sur son œuvre, pp. 332–54. Paris: Éditions Publibook.
Amos, H.W. & Soukup, B. (2020). 'Quantitative 2.0: Toward Variationist Linguistic Landscape Study (VaLLS) and a Standard Canon of LL Variables'. In S. Tufi & D. Malinowski (eds.), Reterritorializing Linguistic Landscapes: Questioning Boundaries and Opening Spaces, pp. 56–76. London: Bloomsbury.
Amos, H.W. (2019). 'Gastronomy, Football, and Resistance: The multi-faceted visibility of Corsican in the Linguistic Landscape'. In A. Joubert & M.A Harrison (eds.), French Language Policies and the Revitalisation of Regional Languages in the 21st Century, pp. 173–202. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Amos, H.W. (2019). 'Negotiating Institutional Identity on a Corsican University Campus'. In A. Peck, C. Stroud, & D. Williams (eds.), Making Sense of People and Place in Linguistic Landscapes, pp. 123–40. London: Bloomsbury.
Book Reviews
(2024). Taking Stock of an Ever-Widening Landscape: A Panorama of Linguistic Landscape Studies. English Today. doi.org/10.1017/S0266078424000282.
(2024). Jeffrey Kallen: Linguistic Landscapes: A sociolinguistic approach. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2024.2428494.
(2021). Jos Hornikx & Frank van Meurs (eds.): Foreign Languages in Advertising: Linguistic and marketing perspectives. Sociolinguistic Studies, 15(2-4), 425–30.
(2020). Mónica Castillo Lluch, Rolf Kailuweit, Claus D. Pusch (eds.): Linguistic Landscape Studies: The French connection. Linguistic Landscape, 6(3), 326–8.
(2016). Mikko Laitinen & Anastassia Zabrodskaja (eds.): Dimensions of Sociolinguistic Landscapes in Europe. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 37(4), 435–7.
(2016). Annick Farina & Valeria Zotti (eds.): La Variation Lexicale des Français: Dictionnaires, base de données, corpus. International Journal of Francophone Studies, 19(2), 209–11.
(2016). Rosa Mucignat (ed.): The Friulian Language: Identity, migration, culture. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 37(6), 642–51.
(2015). Christine Hélot, Monica Barni, Rudi Janssens, and Carla Bagna (eds.): Linguistic Landscapes, Multilingualism and Social Change. Language Policy, 14(2), 191–3.
(2014). Rabeh Sebaa: L’Algérie et la Langue Française ou l’Altérité en Partage. International Journal of Francophone Studies, 17(2), 255–7.
Research links
WE•ID NetworkLink opens in a new window
Languages in Coventry Research GroupLink opens in a new window
Academia.edu profileLink opens in a new window
ORCID:
Teaching
Undergraduate modules
LN102 Translation: Methods and PracticeLink opens in a new window
FR266 Introduction to French LinguisticsLink opens in a new window
LN312 Translation and Translators in the Contemporary WorldLink opens in a new window
LN313 Undergraduate Translation Project (15 OR 30 CATS)Link opens in a new window
Postgraduate modules
LN902 Translation PortfolioLink opens in a new window
LN903 Trans/national CulturesLink opens in a new window
LN904 Dissertation (20,000 words)Link opens in a new window
LN905 Multilingualism and Global CulturesLink opens in a new window
Office hour
Thursdays 13:00–14:00 (please call my office phone when outside the French/Italian studio space: 024 765 73095);
or by email appointment